I’m totally petrified and afraid of mice, like this lady, I have a cat, there was lots of noise I was sitting on my couch with feet on floor, when a mouse came from under couch and walked across my foot, I thought it was my cat till I saw the long tail,I screamed, I live in a apartment building I’m imaculate and clean, but there are some tenants who are filthy,and that’s why there’s mice, broad daylight they run down my hallway looking for openings under entry doors to each apartment, to enter I have towel tucked tightly under seeing this under mine, I called caretaker and nothing ever gets done, I so afraid I stood on kitchen table yesterday screaming and it didn’t scare mouse away,my husband passed away 2 years ago and I had to move into apartment, I have no family and a heart murmur, can’t afford a exterminater to come in,
PLEASE HELP ME! I can’t sleep or eat scared to walk on floor won’t even go in bedroom
I’m pleading for help
Scared stiff, welcome to the Straight Dope. In order to not to reawaken someone else’s terror from four years ago, I’ve split your post off into it’s own thread (with a link referencing back to the original thread).
No. There’s mice because you live in an urban environment and mice are part of the local fauna, along with stray cats & dogs, raccoons, possums, foxes, very small snakes, roaches, pigeons, rats, crows, and coyotes. They’re in your house because they’re itty bitty little things and they gnaw through the wood.
Your relative immaculateness doesn’t enter into it, although, I can’t help but point out, you’re the one with mice romping around your living room, so maybe put that stone down before you break something.
I understand not wanting wildlife in one’s house but I don’t know what to say to someone who’s actually afraid of mice.
Oh - your cat’s unlikely to care, if he’s mellow and well-fed. Or might go all mighty-hunter. You never can tell with cats. Personally, I hate when cats kill mice because they only ever eat half of it. I prefer my cats to just leave it to me.
Traps are an obvious suggestion. I suggest the sticky traps as they’re easier to use, they seem to work better in my experience, and they’re less messy.
If you have problems handling dead or trapped mice, get a bunch of paper sandwich bags. Lay them down on their side on the floor and place the trap inside. This way if you catch a mouse, you can just close up the bag and throw the whole bag out.
Another possibility is something I’ve mentioned before: peppermint. Get a bottle of peppermint oil (not peppermint extract, which is much weaker). Sprinkle a few drops in every room of your apartment. You want it to be strong enough that you can smell it. Mice hate the smell and they’ll avoid your apartment. But be warned your cat may also be upset by the peppermint smell.
Yes, traps. The snap traps might hurt your cat instead. I’ll quote a short section of Mike McGrath’s long essay on mice.
McGrath warns against poisoning the mice. If one dies in your house in some place you can’t get to, the stink of a single dead mouse is unspeakably bad and long-lasting. On the other hand, if your cat gets hold of a poisoned mouse, you’ll have a dead or very sick cat. If the varmint gets outside, you could kill an owl or hawk.
Amazon, for example, has the Mice Cube and several other kinds.
The exterminator I called because of my mouse-phobia recommended baiting the snap traps with peanut butter inside a cotton ball. He said that mice are often able to lick the peanut butter off a snap trap without triggering it; if they have to root around in the cotton ball, they’ll set it off for sure.
Also, a towel tucked tightly under a door probably isn’t doing anything to prevent a mouse from getting through. They can squeeze through incredibly tight spaces.
Another vote for the sticky traps, but get the ones that are flat paper, not the lipped, plastic ones(let the dollar store be your friend) Bait with peanut butter or chocolate(I lost 50 bucks worth of baking chocolate once to a little Topo Gigio) Nix on any poisons, if the mouse eats it and scurries off behind a wall to die, there’s no way of getting it, and the smell is pretty bad. Change the location of the traps every few days, unless you’re having spectacular success in one area.
If you want to scope out your entire living quarters, do so, making note of places mice could enter(all they need is a hole the size of a quarter, I’m guessing less, to enter your place) If you have a lot of potential entrances, get a can of the expanding foam insulation and plug those babies up.
Don’t leave ANYTHING edible on countertops or in an unsecured pantry or cabinets. Candy,cereal, crackers, bread, pasta, bags of flour and sugar, hell, mice’ll eat just about anything. Refrigerate what you can, for the rest use RIGID plastic containers. Forget storing food in an oven, it is not a closed system(I found out to my utter dismay, 12 dozen pizzelles lost)
It’s disgusting and creepy to have them, but oh so satisfying when you see one of those li’l darlings velcro’d and hyperventilating on a glue trap. :o
I have to vote against glue traps, as they are a pretty horrible way to kill a mouse.
Live traps, such as Victor’s “Tin Cat” are not very expensive, and they really do work. A little bait – raisins are good – and the cute li’l mousie tips himself right into the cage. You – or a brave friend – take him outdoors somewhere and let him go.
(Yeah, I know: you’re just feeding him to the owls…)
As for the fear, I know about phobias. They can be overpowering. Do you have a friend you can get to help? If my next-door-neighbor had this problem, I’d be happy to help out. Maybe you’ve got a friend or relative who can work the problem for you?
They sell these little devices that put out ultrasound that supposedly repels mice at most stores such as Lowes and Home Depot. Put one in each room and hopefully they will plague your neighbors instead.
and if the cat decides to go after the mouse on the glue trap its a mess ive had to shave cats pretty much and after a couple of incidents with one my cat loves an occasional bath
Glue traps are torture traps. They should be outlawed.
“Less messy” LMFAO. The animal will chew their own leg off if left on for too long, or a whole patch of skin, etc. Last time I saw a glue trap in use, a mouse had its eye dangling out and its jaw dislocated… and it was still alive. How on earth can you say supergluing an animal on plastic is “less messy”? For goodness sake.
I think we know what the disgusting thing is here - and it ain’t the mice.
It amazes me people still use these things when there are other alternatives. Stop torturing animals, please. You don’t have to do that to kill/get rid of mice.
